<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>lacuna by beneathyourbravery</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23932342">lacuna</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/beneathyourbravery/pseuds/beneathyourbravery'>beneathyourbravery</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SEVENTEEN (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Introspection, Kim Mingyu-centric, M/M, Magical Realism, Mystery, Realization, Soulmates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:14:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,182</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23932342</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/beneathyourbravery/pseuds/beneathyourbravery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>(noun.) a blank space, a missing part.</p><p>the moon shines full and bright on the dark night’s sky. mingyu closes his eyes for second and begs her to set him free.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kim Mingyu/Xu Ming Hao | The8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>lacuna</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this fic was inspired by the painting "Factory in the Moonlight", by Maximilien Luce.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>down by the docks, at the very edge of the town, so close to the shore that even the mildest waves look like they could rip it apart, an abandoned factory stands, stripped of any life that it could, mayhaps, have held within its walls in a past lifetime. mingyu observes its dark, vast silhouette, barely visible in the nights when the sky seems to have been turned off, no moon and no stars to light it up and bring comfort to the cold ocean and the cold town that sit at the foot of the mountains; a kid sitting on his bed by the window in his bedroom, warm pyjamas on his body, an imagination beyond any adult’s comprehension growing inside his head. </p><p>and so mingyu imagines. </p><p>some nights, he envisions the factory bursting with colours from the inside, too full of life for it to be contained by the hard concrete walls, pipe spitting out rainbows of smoke, manufactured happiness spilling from its edges. some others, the factory is dark and cold and empty, machines whirring with nobody to control them, new forms of intelligence growing among broken gears and engines, the whole future of mankind at stake. </p><p>sometimes, the factory is a door to another world, a place where he can fly and meet all kinds of creatures and learn a million languages, somewhere he can be whoever he wants to be without giving any type of explanation, responsibilities forgotten and incommensurable happiness within the reach of his hands.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>mingyu’s head is home to an endless amount of imaginary universes and hopeless dreams, and he is so full of energy that he seems to bounce whenever his rapidly growing body is confined within the walls of his house. he is the happiest kind of a kid, and yet sometimes, he feels as if he knows too much even though he knows nothing at all, and it makes him want to learn love, to discover what awaits for him far away from his home on the hills, to feel complete.</p><p>he is so full of energy, and yet sometimes, he feels as if he has been turned off; longs for something and doesn’t know what for.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>the factory calls to him at night, when the moon shines so bright that he can - if he puts his glasses on - make out the very shape of every window on its front; when he can almost see what is inside, awaiting to be discovered, rediscovered, awaken, found. it calls to him, too, on the darkest nights, alone by the cold wind of the ocean, the sea sending waves to lick at its roots, rust and mold and time threatening the core of its very existence, salt water caressing its walls in the loneliest of times.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>the first time mingyu asks his mom about the factory, she warns him against the minimum idea of approaching it ever daring to cross his mind. it has been abandoned for decades, she says, and who knows what could await inside. mingyu aches to tell her that he too wonders about it, about whether there are monsters or robots or angels or nothing at all waiting past the heavy metal doors, bolts rusted from the time and the water and the wind, but he doesn’t. he nods his head diligently, a good kid and an obedient boy with too many birds nesting in his head, creating stories that nobody but him wants to hear about. he nods his head and listens to the horror tales his mom comes up with to erase the mere idea of visiting the factory from his brain, rats and monsters and demons scratching the rotten walls of the vast building from the inside, and kids who never return home, forgotten as the factory swallows them alive, the tide the only witness to its crimes.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>mingyu confides his secrets to the moon. </p><p>in the quiet of the night, when it is only him sitting on his bed and her shining bright on the dark sky, he tells her about understanding how lonely she must feel, all alone up there. he does, because although he is not alone nor hung up from the firmament, there is something inside him that doesn’t let him be as happy as he wishes he could be, and makes him feel lonely and incomplete and not a part of the world he lives in. and he wants to know what is wrong with him, but he is too young and he can’t and big boys don’t cry, but perhaps he isn’t that big and ends up sobbing as he tells her. if he does, it is because he knows she will listen and keep it close to her heart, and take good care of him whenever he needs her to do so.</p><p>he tells her that and, in a hushed whisper that is almost lost in the softness of his pillow, trusts her to keep a secret the way his heart skipped a beat when jeon jungkook asked him to borrow a pencil in class today.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>the factory appears in his dreams too, sometimes, when the moon is full and casting light over the building, and it always goes in the same way.</p><p>mingyu walks all the way down the docks, the cold wind in the dark night hitting his face and his arms and his legs, and he cannot feel it, shouldn’t feel it, except he does. it’s icy and it’s humid, and the way over to the broken, molden wooden fence that marks what was once, perhaps, the entrance to the factory complex is too long and too exhausting. eventually, though, he gets there, and his tired feet and sore legs carry him over what used to be a road for materials transportation, and is now nothing but an accumulation of gravel and plants and unknown black substances melted into the uneven ground. mingyu walks up to the massive concrete structure, only barely lit up by the bright light of the full moon occupying the dark blue sky, and he waits by the closed door under a wooden scaffold that could break down and trap him under at any moment; and when the door suddenly opens and light spills like magma from the hollow it reveals, mingyu wakes up, his heart beating too fast and his breathing too harsh and his whole body taut with tension.</p><p>when he sits up on his bed, hand over his racing chest, the factory stares back at him through the window glass; always lit up by the moon, its only companion in the quiet and still night. </p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>mingyu grows older and finds a job in his town and never leaves his family home, a house perched on the small hill over which the village was first constructed decades ago, further expanding around its feet like a skirt as time went by. a timeless town, a reduct of civilization between the tall mountains and the shallow ocean, where mingyu grew up and exchanged superhero pajamas and endless dreams of fantastic worlds for a black apron tied around his buff body at his parents’ café and nights spent finishing up projects to send to his long-distance university. </p><p>mingyu’s friends grow older, too, and they no longer play soccer together at the little square in front of the town’s council. some of them leave the town to attend university in the big city, others stay behind and work to support their family businesses, mingyu is indecisive and ends up choosing both. life changes, people and places evolve together and adjust to each other so as to give everyone room to exist in the ever changing landscape.</p><p>everything is temporary, except the everlasting void in his heart he has never been able to understand, and the factory waiting for mingyu on the other side of his window when he goes to bed at night; the same dream that has plagued his mind since he was just a child bursting behind his eyelids every time he falls asleep with a full moon shining on the sky.</p><p>but even that has experimented a different kind of change, something that makes mingyu feel at unease whenever he wakes up after an entire night of exploring the surroundings of the factory as he wishes; something he was not able to do when he was younger, a gift and a curse for his curious and confused soul.</p><p>mingyu was not in control back then, body moving towards the factory like a magnet, mind subjected to the wills of his dreams and the building that seemed to want to catch and keep him inside itself forever; but he is now, his feet leading him to where he wants to go even if he’s dreaming, exploring a place he’s never been in before but knows by now better than the palm of his own hand, mind alert as he takes in the details he’s skipped over all the previous times.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>the moon is still his confident in the dark hours that precede dawn, when mingyu can’t bring himself to sleep and his mind stays awake running a mile an hour, the caress of unshed tears burning in the back of his eyes. </p><p>it’s during those times that mingyu tells her about how he wishes his dreams would stop and that his mind could be at rest, his heart not aching with the weight of a thousand questions and no answers to satiate it. but <em> something is wrong </em> , he doesn’t say; because tales of incompletion are a child’s thing and he is no longer a kid with a wild imagination and an intrepid streak. <em> something is wrong </em>, he does think, because he feels both too much and too little, like he is both himself and someone else, and that is his own personal truth.</p><p>instead, mingyu tells her about how he wishes his heart had skipped a beat when jeon jungkook ordered his coffee today; laments on his soul, too tired to push past the shadow wrapped tight around it like a blanket to feel something other than the now familiar sense of disarray; a weird kind of nostalgia he can’t put a name on.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>tonight, when mingyu finally falls asleep after a long day of working and studying for his finals, with the light of the full moon filtering through the small gaps on his blinds reflecting on his sheets, the path that is revealed in front of him when he begins to dream no longer feels foreign. </p><p>the wind that hits his face as he walks towards the factory is still icy and wet as always, so he makes his dream self wrap a thick jacket around his body and keeps walking, eyes and ears alert, heart rate kicking up even if it’s all familiar to him now. the waves crash against the rocks over which the road to the building was built on, and he is no longer walking on his socks but wears thick boots that protect his feet as he gets closer and closer to his destination, searching for new clues that can help him understand what the factory wants from him.</p><p>but this time, when he arrives to the old building’s metal door under the rotten scaffold - the usual end to his dream - he notices something is different. it’s a strange feeling, knowing that you are in control of something of which you should not be and that yet you cannot control it all, and as he tries to recap and think of what might have possibly changed this time, he realises he is no longer alone.</p><p>turning around, mingyu finds a dark silhouette watching him under the shadows casted by the small warehouse on the opposite side of the road, tall and slim and silent, and he wants to scream or talk or maybe just find out what it is, but he catches sight of the moonlight reflecting on its eyes and then he’s suddenly awake, body spasming with shivers and a deep kind of cold that does not go away in days.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>the silhouette now waits for mingyu by the factory’s entrance every night his dreams take him there, an unknown being hidden in the shadows that prevents him from finding out the truth that the factory’s walls must be hiding within, and mingyu doesn’t understand anything, just like how he’s never been able to fully grasp the feelings that have been burning inside his chest for as long as he can remember. </p><p>the factory wants him, is the only thing he knows, and that he needs her to find the answers he so badly needs.</p><p>the factory calls, and mingyu listens.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>the air hitting sharp against his skin is just as cold and humid as it has always been in his dreams, and mingyu wishes he too could, just like he does when he’s asleep, make himself feel warm by sheer force of will. </p><p>but he is no longer in a dream, the throbbing bruise on his shin from when he escaped his room by the window reminds him, and so mingyu speeds up his steps and lets his body be drawn towards the place that seems to have caught him in a web and threatens to never let him go, the relief of an answer to his questions only a few feet away from him.</p><p>standing by the fence at the factory’s entrance doesn’t feel as strange as it probably should, but mingyu has been there enough times in his dreams not to experience the uneasiness that should probably come from knowing down to the smallest detail a place he’s never been to before. walking inside the complex is still as easy as his mind has always made it up for him, and before he knows it, his feet have carried him to stand under the wooden structure that he knows covers the entrance to the concrete building. </p><p>mingyu realises he has been holding his breath as he stares at the metallic door, rusted and covered with mold just like it has been engraved into his memory, and as he braces himself to turn around and search for what he knows is waiting for him in the shadows, something moves and suddenly he is no longer alone.</p><p>standing just off to the side of the scaffold, bathed in the bright moonlight, the being looks just like a human, but something inside mingyu knows something about it is off, <em> different </em> . and he wants to be scared from this <em> thing </em> that could be potentially dangerous, but he can't because it just does not scare him and is familiar in a way in which it shouldn't be. </p><p>there is a flash of hurt on its face when mingyu asks “who are you?”, and he can, too, feel it in his chest because somehow he knows he <em> should </em> know. and yet he keeps pushing, “what do you want from me?”, a sad smile on the being’s face and a mouthful of bitterness making him open his eyes to find his back pressed into the mattress of his bed, the blank ceiling above him shining orange with the first rays of sunrise and his mind clouded thick with confusion.</p><p>on the other side of the window, surrounded by the quiet of the ocean, the factory watches him, still, silent, expectant.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>the moon shines full and bright on the dark night’s sky, and mingyu hopes she will take care of him just like she has always done. sitting on the pavement ground beside him, seemingly unbothered by the cold wind that bites at their faces and threatens to steal mingyu’s voice, the person who awaits for him in between the shadows of the factory on every full moon night listens attentively to what he has to say; to what he has to think, what he has to breathe.</p><p>returning to the factory after the strange events that followed his first visit to the building might not have been the wisest move, but mingyu is nothing if not persistent and his heart has been aching for too many years for him not to give it the answers it so desperately needs. by now, he no longer goes to the factory in lucid dreams induced by the full moon’s light; it is his feet that carry him there, real and daring, on every night his heart is pulled in by the building’s magnet, in a quest for a feeling of completion and a lifetime of calm. </p><p>after endless nights of silence and just sitting beside each other, too afraid of what could happen to attempt at doing anything other than just coexist, mingyu indulges his own desires and begins to talk.</p><p>it is not until much later that he learns the being is named minghao, and then not much more because <em> minghao </em> doesn’t really like to speak much. he would rather listen to mingyu’s emotional speeches about the need to know what the factory wants from him, to satiate his heart’s thirst for an explanation of the mystery that has been surrounding them both forever; to his reflexions about how good his life seems to be and yet how void, how <em> incomplete </em> he feels; to his little stories about the events that occurred to him in between his visits to the factory, the people he met at his parents’ café and the essays he wrote for his course. </p><p>minghao is much slower to open up, but after a good amount of nights filled only by the sounds of the breeze, the rising tide and mingyu’s voice, he eventually does; giving comfort to mingyu on his worst nights, and providing advice so fitting for him that it should be unsettling, yet can only bring calm to his troubled soul. mingyu feels at peace when they’re together, and the realisation is both terrifying and not surprising at all.</p><p>it is too after a long time that mingyu stops wondering about the nature of minghao’s existence, about whether he is some supernatural being or simply someone who has too much to lose and too little to live and, just like he does, seeks shelter in the old factory’s embrace. after endless nights together, he can only consider minghao a person as whole as he is. (maybe more, because complete is not something mingyu has ever felt like). </p><p>minghao lets out a small little laugh at one of mingyu’s tales of burnt toast and spilt coffee, and his heart gives a painful tug that wrenches his chest and screams of a longing mingyu has never been able to understand, but now feels closer to his core than ever.</p><p>the moon shines full and bright on the dark night’s sky, and mingyu closes his eyes for second and begs her to set him free.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>it is not until a little eternity of full moon nights has gone by, during which they have both grown fond of each other’s company in the dark of twilight, that mingyu asks minghao about the factory. he does so when the breeze is no longer cold with winter, but rather warm and sticky against his skin, dampening him with the scent of a summer night. </p><p>he tells minghao about the attraction he has always felt towards the building; about how, when he was a kid, he would imagine an endless assortment of fantastic worlds on the other side of the old door on which they are resting their backs tonight, monsters and robots and angels and magic within an arm’s reach. he tells him, too, about his troubled soul and restless mind, who will not let him breathe until he discovers what the factory wants from him; tells him, again, of his tales of longing and nostalgia and the indecipherable desires of his heart, and the wish to be free, to be able to fly and leave behind a lifetime of confusion.</p><p>minghao says nothing, a quiet soul but a solid presence beside him, and for a moment mingyu thinks he will do nothing at all and that will be it, another night spent in silence, his chest open wide for the dark of the sky to see and swallow him whole. but then, minghao is reaching towards him with steady hands, and mingyu meets him in the middle and grabs one of them between his own; a natural move that feels familiar despite the novelty of it, minghao’s bony fingers finding home on the curve of his jaw. “i can show you,” minghao whispers, and his touch is warm and electric and mingyu feels <em> addicted </em>. “i can ease off your pain, if you come inside with me.”</p><p>mingyu takes a deep breath and goes to say something, and then everything goes still and quiet and he feels himself falling backwards. </p><p>he prepares for his back to meet the ground, but it never does. </p><p>he closes his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>when he opens his eyes again, there is a world full of color blossoming underneath the soles of his feet, and mingyu believes himself in a dream. there are golden glimpses of sun and sounds of the fresh crash of ocean waves against the shore, and notions of love and trust and belonging bursting inside his chest. </p><p>minghao’s hand is still held tight between his own, fingers intertwined, and realisation comes upon him when his voice fills him from the inside and not through his ears. “i can bring calm to your soul, if you come with me.”</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>mingyu wakes up in a cold sweat and sits up on his unmade bed, clothes still on; his throat pulsing in tune with his heartbeat, his hands clammy, his shoulders shaking. </p><p>minghao is nowhere to be found, and the moon is gone behind a thick curtain of clouds. they obscure the view of the factory, too, and a violent shiver runs down the column of his spine, forces him to curl into himself.</p><p>behind the glass of his window, with no sight of those who have always been by his side, he has never felt more alone.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>the moon takes her time before shining full on the sky again, and she does in the warmest night mingyu can remember. the window in his bedroom is wide open, and yet there is no wind to come through to ease off the heat building between the thick walls of his house. </p><p>the moon is full on the night sky, and mingyu makes no move to go to the factory despite his heart’s painful beating whenever he thinks of minghao and the whisper of his promise.</p><p>the moon is full on the night sky, and when mingyu manages to succumb to sleep after hours of tossing around in his bed, he dreams of nothing at all. </p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>there is fear curling around mingyu’s chest whenever he is not distracting himself with something to prevent his mind from thinking about the last time he saw minghao, constricting his heart and leaving him breathless. ever since the night in which minghao held his hand and led him through a world he could have made up himself when he was a kid thinking about the factory on the other side of his window, he has been too terrified to even think about going to the building again. </p><p><em> “i can bring calm to your soul, if you come with me” </em>. the words that minghao let out into the inside of his soul echo against the walls of his ribcage, and he is scared of the truth that might be hidden underneath the very existence of the young boy that makes his heart clench whenever he smiles at him, a knowing glint in his eyes, as if he could see right through him.</p><p>he feels like a kid again, like he knows too much although he knows nothing again, and when his thoughts run so wildly through the course of his veins that he can’t even tell truth apart from fantasy, he washes his face and forces himself to seek comfort in the warm of his pillow.</p><p>he no longer dreams of the factory, nor of minghao. his dreams are empty pitches of black, and of longing tattooed against the flesh inside his chest, foreign but still all his.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>mingyu misses minghao. </p><p>in the dark of the night, with no sounds apart from the light trattle of the autumn breeze against the wooden frame of his window, he thinks of him; of eyes that seem to know everything, and a smile that can calm every single one of his worries, that stirs a blooming feeling of adoration in his soul. </p><p>deep inside, mingyu can tell his fate is somehow tied to minghao, and yet he aches to understand where their paths meet and entangle, and how they do, and why. </p><p>mingyu misses minghao in the nights when the moon is full. he misses him, too, in the ones when the sky cries endless tears of rain and lighting, the moon a prisoner in a cage of thunder. </p><p>it is on a night of the latter kind that his body is set alight with revelation. in a flashing moment of lucidness, just like how lighting crashes against the ocean and the furious wind of the storm pushes violent waves to break against the shore, mingyu recognises the familiarity of minghao’s touch against his face, against his hands, the warmth of his soul against his own. with the clarity that comes upon himself, he sees his own longing mirrored in minghao, in the way in which he watches him and listens to him, in how he aches to bring peace to mingyu. </p><p>it makes him understand why he must go into the factory with him, because minghao is the why and the because, the reason the factory calls to him and why mingyu listens and obeys.</p><p>in the rush of the moment he forgets to grab a jacket, but his body doesn’t seem to mind the harsh pouring of the rain against his skin as he runs towards the factory, a soul searching for completion.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>minghao is waiting for him in the same place he has always been; hidden in the shadows of the warehouse, the wooden scaffold under which mingyu stands shaking with the force of the wind. </p><p>minghao looks surprised to see mingyu, and at the same time his gaze tells the way in which he knew he would come sooner or later, a soul in search of his other half.</p><p>“i wanna go inside the factory with you,” mingyu says, and he is scared his words will be drown in the crashing of the storm, “i want you to show me.” </p><p>but minghao hears him and nods his head, and then he is standing in front of him, holding mingyu’s hand. and mingyu faintly thinks, <em> how could i have ever been scared of this </em>, and when they both turn around to face the old metal rusted door, the bolts are suddenly unlocked and it parts open, slowly, forgiving.</p><p>minghao grips his hand a little bit tighter, brings him to the present and says, “please don’t let me go”.</p><p>mingyu never will. not again.</p><p>they walk inside, and the doors are sealed close behind them.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>the world that awaits for them inside the factory does not know barriers of any kind, and in it they are able to float and exist together. the golden sun shines on them and bathes them with relief, in a cosmos full of reminiscences of tender kisses and softer touches. </p><p>their souls find one another, once again after various liftimes of loneliness, left aching and longing for one another until mingyu’s soul was reborn inside a boy who lived close to the factory that has always been both minghao’s home and his prison.</p><p>their souls find one another, and when the sun sets and the moon comes out, it takes them into her protective embrace and watches their love be sealed under the promise of eternity.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>down by the docks, at the very edge of the town, a hundred lifetimes away from today, so close to the shore that even the mildest waves look like they could rip it apart, a factory stands, flourishing with business and life. inside, minghao and mingyu meet and become friends and fall in love, a secret in a world in which there is no room for a connection so strong like their own, two humans that should not be together if society’s conventions were anything but useless constructs built to control and govern.</p><p>their love grows so big that it could burst through the windows of the factory where they work and the warehouse in which they sleep, oil stained clothes discarded and hands engraving promises over each other’s skin.</p><p>and then one day, when the moon shines full and bright on the sky and work has not yet come to a stop, minghao’s body is collapsing to the ground and like that he is ripped away from mingyu’s arms, his body buried alongside the hundreds who too gave away their life within the unforgiving walls of industrial progress. </p><p>mingyu mourns and leaves the factory to never come back. he never gets married, gets to grow older and thinks of minghao everyday until he passes away, alone in a small house on the hills that never quite felt like home.</p><p>minghao’s soul stays trapped in the factory, both a home and a prison, awaiting to be found by mingyu’s.</p><p> </p><p>🏭</p><p> </p><p>back in his family home perched over the hill, mingyu is fast asleep in his bed, the covers draped over him and no concerns for the storm raging outside disturbing his peaceful rest. when he wakes up in the morning and takes in a deep breath, he feels his chest fully expand, and he feels like he is weightless and full of energy to give away. </p><p>he guesses a full night of sleep does that to one self.</p><p>after eating breakfast with his mom, he rushes over to the café for his morning shift. a new customer comes in today, apparently having just moved in to the town, and he places his order for coffee by the name of minghao. </p><p>“have we met before?,” mingyu asks, because minghao rings something familiar inside that he can’t quite put his finger on. </p><p>minghao smiles and shakes his head. “but i would love to know you better,” he says instead, writes his phone number down on a napkin with mingyu’s pen and sits by the window to drink his coffee. mingyu has to force himself to drag his gaze away from him and focus on attending the other customers awaiting for their drinks. </p><p>mingyu’s friends come by the café afterwards and offer to go on a bike ride down the shore, just like they did when they were younger, and he accepts eagerly and briefly wonders if minghao would like to tag along.</p><p>in the distance, the works to demolish the old, abandoned factory begin, and for some strange reason he does not understand, mingyu feels at peace.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>if you got to here, thank you so so so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>